Changing your company's year end in Nigeria

Who a Nigerian company must tell when it moves its year end, by when, and how the change shifts its tax return deadline and its books.

By Achekam · 11 October 2026 · 5 min read · For Running a business businesses in Nigeria

Companies change their year end for ordinary reasons. A new parent company reports to 31 March and wants its subsidiaries in step. A retailer realises that closing the books in the middle of the festive season is a nightmare and wants a quieter month. A business that was set up in a hurry simply picked the wrong date.

In Nigeria the change is allowed, but it is not a private decision. Two bodies need to hear about it: the Corporate Affairs Commission, which keeps the company register, and the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), which taxes the company's profits. Each has its own deadline, and the change moves the date of the company's next tax return. This article sets out what each one expects and how to handle the change in your books.

Tell the NRS at least 30 days before your usual filing date

The NRS says a company that changes its accounting date must notify the NRS of the change not later than 30 days before its usual due date of filing income tax returns. The rule appears in NRS Information Circular No. 2026/01 on the ascertainment of companies' income tax and the Development Levy, which you can read in full in the NRS's circular on ascertaining company income tax and the Development Levy; it also covers basis periods, capital allowances and losses.

The "usual due date" is the one that applies to your current year end. The NRS's own example of the six-month rule is a company with a 31 December year end, whose return is due by 30 June. A company in that position that decides to move its year end must have its notice with the NRS at least 30 days before that usual date. Leaving the decision until the return is nearly due is too late.

The basis period after the change

A change of year end leaves a gap or an overlap between the old pattern and the new one. The NRS circular deals with this by saying that the basis period after the change runs from the day after the previous basis period ended to the new accounting date.

In words: suppose the last return covered a year ending 31 December, and the directors move the year end to 30 June. The next basis period starts on 1 January and runs to the new 30 June date. That period is shorter than a year, and the company's profit for it is what gets taxed for that period. If the new date had been later than the old one, the period would simply be longer. Either way, no day falls outside a basis period and no day is counted twice.

Because the basis period is unusual, draw up the management accounts for exactly that span before you prepare the tax computation, and keep the board resolution that fixed the new date with the working papers.

Tell CAC within 14 days of the directors' decision

Under the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020, section 377(4), the year-end date chosen by the directors must be notified to the Commission within 14 days of the determination. The clock starts with the directors' decision, not with the end of the new year.

The change also touches the duty to lay accounts. Under section 388, directors must lay the company's financial statements before a general meeting at least once every year, made up to a date not more than nine months before the meeting, and deliver a copy of the balance sheet, profit and loss account and notes with the annual return to the Commission. A new year end should be chosen with that meeting in mind, so that the statements laid are never too old.

How the new year end moves the six-month deadline

Under the Nigeria Tax Administration Act, 2025, every company, whether or not it is liable to pay tax, must file a self-assessment return with the NRS not more than six months after the end of its accounting year if it has been in business for more than 18 months. A newly incorporated company files within 18 months from incorporation or not later than six months after the end of its first accounting period, whichever is earlier.

So the new year end carries its own six-month deadline. Moving from 31 December to 30 June moves the filing date with it. Diarise the new date as soon as the directors decide, and remove the old one so nobody works to a deadline that no longer exists. The yearly cycle of the return itself is explained in the annual self-assessment return, and if the change touches a period that began before the new laws, read tax periods before 2026 first.

Achekam computes objection and appeal deadlines for Nigerian assessments from the approved administration rule, and its filing calendar leaves out any deadline whose rule is awaiting approval or contested, saying why. Treat a gap in that calendar as a date to confirm yourself, not as a date that does not exist.

Keeping the books straight around the change

The ledger does not care which date you call the year end, but your reports do.

• Management accounts. Achekam's management accounts show an income statement for a chosen period beside the period before, and a balance sheet at period end, added up from the business's own journals and exportable as PDF or CSV. The year-to-date preset starts on 1 January, not on the business's own year start. After a change of year end, choose the period dates by hand so the reports follow the new year and the short transition period.
• Closing months. Months can be soft-closed, hard-closed and locked in Achekam, and a closed month refuses postings from every source. Reopening a hard close needs a second approver. Close the last month of the transition period once its figures are agreed, so nothing slips into it after the tax computation is done.

A change-of-year-end checklist

1. Board resolution fixing the new accounting date, dated and signed.
2. CAC notice within 14 days of that decision.
3. NRS notice at least 30 days before the usual filing date for the current year end.
4. Basis period worked out: from the day after the last one ended to the new date.
5. New filing date diarised as six months after the new year end; old date removed.
6. General meeting planned so the statements laid are no more than nine months old.
7. Reports in the books set to the new periods by hand; the transition month closed once agreed.

Before any of this, ask your accountant whether a change is worth it. If it is, give the NRS and CAC their notice first and do the bookkeeping second.

General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.